Google co-founder Sergey Brin has put his reputation behind a project launched today by a team from Google Australia which seeks to overthrow email as the dominant mode of internet communication and replace it with a new hybrid

“What we are seeing with Wave really rethinks how communication works,”

“I think you will see a form of interaction that you would not have previously imagined

Christened Wave, the new system is a combination of email and instant messaging and document-, maps- image- and video-sharing all housed in one spot (screenshots can be found here)

Much like a conference call, it also allows for conversations between more than two people to happen simultaneously

it can happen in different languages using an instantaneous translation tool

no special software to download or plug-in - which means it can be used from any computer or internet-enabled mobile phone